We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - (BEST OF) Ina Garten's Best Life Advice

Episode Date: July 16, 2026

Ina Garten has spent a lifetime proving that joy is anything but frivolous. In this heartwarming conversation, the Barefoot Contessa shares how following curiosity instead of convention helped her build a life—and career—she never imagined. Plus, the unforgettable story of how Abby Wambach ended up playing beer pong with Ina Garten at a Taylor Swift party. - Why following what feels fun can change your life - How to quiet your inner critic and stop settling - Ina's secret to hosting a dinner party everyone will love - The surprising lesson behind her decades-long marriage About Ina:  Ina Garten has hosted her Emmy and James Beard Award winning show, Barefoot Contessa, on the Food Network since 2002 and recently launched a new interview focused series, Be My Guest, with Food Network and discovery+. She has published thirteen cookbooks, including eleven #1 New York Times bestsellers. In 2015 Ina Garten was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People. She lives in East Hampton, New York with her husband, Jeffrey. Follow We Can Do Hard Things on:  Instagram — ⁠https://www.instagram.com/wecandohardthings⁠

Hello, Pod Squad. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. Today we are bringing back this best of, this most joyful, wonderful conversation with the great, with the delightful, with the wise, Aina Garten. And we're bringing this back to you for so many reasons. First of all, because Aina is so wise, because she is a damn delight. Because she makes us laugh. and she makes us think, and she somehow makes us believe that a roast chicken might actually

solve all of our problems. But mostly we're bringing it back because right now, we need reminders that joy matters. We need reminders that delight is not frivolous, that fun is not a distraction from life. It is one of the most important parts of life. And it is what keeps us going through the hard stuff. And nobody embodies all of that more than I know. Also, this episode contains one of my favorite Abby stories of all time, the story where Abby Wambach, fresh off a World Cup victory, ends up playing beer pong with Ina Garten at a Taylor Swift party. Although it's one of those stories that sounds completely made up until Ina confirms it in this podcast. But underneath the beer pong and Taylor Swift of it all is something I keep thinking about lately. Every beautiful thing

in Ina's life started with the tiny voice inside her saying, that looks like fun. I mean, listen, You guys, that's how she's done all of this. Gone towards what sounds like fun to her. Not practical, not strategic, not sensible, fun. First a little food store, then a cookbook, then a television show, a life she wasn't supposed to want. And because she followed that voice instead of the voices telling her who she should be, she built one of the most joyful lives I've ever seen.

In this conversation, Ina teaches us how to silence our inner critic, how to stop settling, how to host a dinner party, how to build a life, and why satisfaction has everything to do with trusting yourself. And yes, you'll get the full story of how the barefoot contessa became Abby Wambach's beer pong partner, although I do believe that Ina insisted on Chardonnay in her cups. Honestly, that's reason enough to listen. Enjoy. Hi. Hi. What a pleasure to meet you. I am Amanda. Hi, Amanda. It's so nice to see you. I know Abby. Hi, Ina.

And let me just say, I can't believe you remembered that incident. I will always remember it. But that you remembered, it was amazing to me. And Glennon, it's so nice to meet you. Oh, thank you. It is such a delight and an honor to meet you. We've been so excited about today. We've been talking about this for like six months, right?

Yes. Yes. Yes. So here we are. Thank you. Today is the day that we are joined by Ina Garden. Ina Garten has hosted her Emmy and James Beard award-winning show, Barefoot Contessa, on the Food Network. I'm like, smile.

I'm so smiley. Get your shit together, Glennon, on the Food Network since 2002 and recently launched a new interview-focused series, Be My Guest, with Food Network and Discovery Plus. She has published 13 cookbooks, including 11 number one New York Times bestsellers. In 2015, Ina Garten was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People. She lives in East Hampton, New York, with her husband, Jeffrey, who we love her memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens, is available today. Ina, thank you so much for being here today. It's so much fun to see all of you.

Where is everybody? You guys are in California. Yep, us too. And Amanda, where are you? I am right now across the Long Island Sound from you. Oh, you're in Connecticut? In Connecticut. Yes.

Oh, great. Okay. So I'm waving to you over the bed. Well, I'm in New York, so I'm closer than you think. Nice, nice. We wanted to start. I need to tell you, I know, that my wife is the most wonderful person in the world. And since she's had such a beautiful, interesting life, she likes to tell stories about that

beautiful, interesting life. And so sometimes she tells the same stories over and over again. And it's just a thing we know and love in our family. And don't we all? I love those stories. I'm always teeing Jeffrey up. Can you tell that story? And he goes, you know the story, but I love to hear him tell it.

Oh, she's nice. You know what? That's so nice. I'm like, don't tell it. We've already heard it. Yeah. Okay. That's nice.

I'm going to get some more. Ina energy. Take some notes. Okay. That's the key to 60 years together, right? Exactly. Okay. Noted already.

I'm sorry. I interrupted you. No. You should have. So recently someone asked me, of all the stories that Abby retells with the most frequency, what is the story she tells with the most frequency? Okay. And I didn't even have to think about it. I said, it's the story about Ina Garten and Taylor Swift and beer pong.

And so when we read, because honestly, you know how folklore happens and you hear stories over again? you're like not even sure they're true. No pun intended. When I... I can tell you, this happened. Can you tell us the story? I want to hear it from Abby's point of view. Oh, great.

Because I know my point of view. Yeah. So this is in 2015. The 1989 Taylor Swift tour was happening. But that wasn't the important thing. The important thing is that you just won. Yeah, we had just won the World Cup. And so we were kind of in, we were, our whole team is in New York City to do ticker tape parade and to celebrate and do.

and do like the car wash of all the news media outlets. And so Taylor, that's what we call it. You never heard of you just go. No, we never heard it. Yeah, you just go from each station network to the next. Anyway, so Taylor invited our whole team to come to her concert to celebrate and to also come on stage and celebrate. And what did you think when that happened?

That's a good question. I don't know. I was out of my mind. Let's just say that in terms of just celebrating the World Cup and finally like accomplishing the goal. And of course, to get the invite from Taylor, the thing that impressed me the most about Taylor was prior to the actual concert, the folks that were going to be going on stage all had to go backstage. And she does like a circle up with all of her dancers and her band and everybody. And she included our whole team in this circle. It was like a huddle.

Of course she did. And you wouldn't believe the kind of leadership this woman was commanding. I was like ready to go to battle. I was ready to go fight for any. It was incredible. She was incredible. The concert was incredible. And she was 25.

I mean, how she had the presence and the grace and the humility and the leadership at the same time is just, let alone the talent. I know. It's always stunning to me. I know. She's a huge idol in our house. One of the most beautiful things about this night is after the concert, she held this little party. I don't really remember how this happened, but it was like all the tour buses were like in circle.

It was huge. It was all the equipment was brought in 16 wheelers. They made an enormous circle around the parking lot. And inside the circle, she invited everybody that worked with her and her friends and people that were there to be part of a party. after she did her concert, she joined a party every night. It was just extraordinary. Yeah. Anyway, and that's where we were.

We were in that. It was a huge circle around a parking lot. And you too, Ina, had been connected. How? Like, did you just win a World Cup? To Taylor? Yeah. It's actually quite so sweet.

Food Network magazine, Miley Carpenter, who's the editor-in-chief, decided that she was going to have an issue that was rock stars and their favorite Food Network people. And Taylor chose me. which was just so, it's just like, I mean, to be chosen by her is just, as you know, Abby, it's just an incredible thing. And she came and we did a photo shoot together. And I just decided, I didn't want to just stand there with her.

I wanted to do something with her and they could just get a picture of us having fun together. And I decided we would make a Pavlova, which just reminds me of Taylor Swift. It's this gorgeous meringue creation with whipped cream and fresh berry. I do it with berries and raspberry sauce. And we assembled the whole thing together. We had the most wonderful time and took two huge big serving spoons and just dove right into it. And it was just one of the great photo shoots I've ever had in my life. And of course, because you know how Taylor is.

She's just extraordinary. And we ended up connecting. That's how I connected with her originally. Yeah. And you're being humble because they reached out to Taylor and said, who we want you in it, who do you want? And she said, I want Ina because Ina is my hero. So you.

I didn't know that. Thank you. Or the hero of her. And we're going to circle back to this because you're, I think it might be, you know, the way we're talking about Taylor and her leadership and the way she does things and the fact that you're her hero. And you have always done things exactly your way, even though everyone's telling you that's not the way to do it. And so did she. And I just think there's a thread there. But circling back to beer paws where it all began. Anyway, so here we are in the middle of all these trucks. And what I remember, it was so loud. There was a band playing and there was music. I know there was some kind of music. It was really loud. Yeah.

So after the concert, my whole team, you know, we kind of usher into this little barricade of 18-wheel or trucks. And we're just having fun. And there's like ping pong tables and they've got solo cups to play beer pong. And if you don't know this, beer pong is a game. their cups are put in a billiard form like formation. And you have a ping pong ball and you're supposed to throw the ping pong ball into a cup. And if you get the ping pong ball into the cup, you have to drink the liquid in the cup. So up you walk to the table. This is in my memory. So my

team is there and you walk up. And I know, I am a lover of food and I love to cook. And so barefoot contessa, you have been kind of a friend of mine for a long time. to actually meeting. Oh, my God. The way that you present and cook food and the way you talk about it and just like your softness and your voice makes it so inviting to like actually want to entertain the idea of even trying to cook. So I just want to like lay that groundwork from my perspective.

You have really enabled like a real love of cooking in my life. So up Ina walks, up barefoot Contessa walks, which. shoes on. And you kind of just came up very curious. Like, what are you all playing? And I just said, oh my gosh, we're playing beer pong. You know, I think I invited you to play or somebody invited you to play. I'm like, let's go. I probably threw whoever was on the game, like one of my teammates off. I'm like, you're off. Ina's in. Voted off the island. Exactly. Yeah. We get the A team right now. Exactly. And you were drinking, I think, white wine in my memory. And I was drinking beer. And P.S., I'm sober. I've been sober pretty much since then, I think. But you were trying to figure out how to play the game. And so I was explaining the rules to you and probably doing a terrible job. And so what did I say? You can quote me here. So I'm going to tell you from my point of view. So there was obviously there was beer pong. There was all kinds of things going on. There was music and food and everything.

everybody was having a great time. And one of my friends said to me, who was with me, said, let's go pay beer pong. And I'm like, I've never played beer pong in my life. I don't even know what it is. And she said, oh, you'll be fine, you'll be fine. And drag me over there. And I'm standing there. I had a vague idea how you're supposed to do it.

And you came over and I'm like, oh, my God, Abby, you said to me, I'm going to be your advisor. And I'm like, oh, my God, Abby Wambach is my strategic advisor. This is so great. I was like out of my mind. I thought, I'm going to nail it. And you said something because it was so loud, I couldn't hear you. You screamed something. And I was like, what did you say?

And you said, get the fucking ball in the fucking cup. Like, that's your advice? Yes. I just love that. So much for strategic. That's all you need to know. That's not helpful, actually. Does that sound right up?

It's exactly right. It's not, especially if it was. loud. I just got to throw a few fucks in there. It was great. And it may be the story I've told the most, too. So I'm so glad you've remembered it. I'm going to tell you this story and you're not even know who I am. Oh, no. I remember. It's so good. It was great. And one of the other parts of the story that we're kind of omitting here, but I think is really funny is Taylor walks up to our table. And she says, Abby Wambach is playing beer pong with Ina Garten. This is like the most amazing thing I've ever seen sort of thing.

She was dumbfounded. I don't remember that. Yeah. I actually remember she must have been with her brother because I remember Austin being there and going, am I watching Abby Wamback and I in a garden play beer pot? Yeah. Yeah. That's the two of them were.

Yeah. Isn't that great? It's like a fever dream. Yeah. Really. It's like one of those dreams and nothing makes sense. Exactly. Exactly.

Anyway, it was a great night. It was a great night. It was really an extraordinary time. It was the best. That was really fun. Bring in so many cool things together. I love that story. When I got to that part of the book, I was like, oh, this is amazing.

It's true. Abby wasn't mine. I think that's how we all were like, oh, I think this story is actually true. Yes. Yeah. I might embellish a story here and there. I'm glad they trust you. Yeah, but I am not a liar.

I'm not a liar. I love it. I love it. Well, that, thank you for blessing us with that story. I want to ask you, so much of your book was just, oh like it's it's such a delight and it's such a inspiring it just makes you want to be like greedy about life just going after everything that is delicious in life and and it was just such a invitation to do that and you also have really you're really honest in the book about a lot of

things that happened in your life that were not easy and you had a very relatable ritual with your dad where every day he would say, what did you accomplish today? He did. And the interesting thing about that is that if you said something that also related to something you enjoy, he would say that doesn't count. Like it could only count as an accomplishment if you hated what you were doing. It was what he thought I should be doing, not what I thought I should be doing. So if I won a tennis tournament and I knit a fisherman in sweater, my father would go,

no, no, no, that's not an accomplishment. That's something you wanted to do. But if I got an A in organic chemistry, that to him would be an accomplishment. And I just, I didn't understand why what you loved doing couldn't be an accomplishment. Yes. What is, okay, because his idea, accomplishment is like self-denial struggle. Your whole life has seemed to be like proof of the opposite, that you can have something, go after something you love and enjoy. And in that pursuit, you have this mountain of accomplishments and build this empire.

So how did you adopt that opposite life philosophy? I think that we all need one person who truly sees us and believes in us. And that wasn't my father. My father had a roadmap about what you should be doing with your life. And nobody could deviate from it. If it wasn't exactly what he thought was the right thing to do, it was all about appearances and accomplishments. And then I met Jeffrey. And Jeffrey saw who I am, knew what I love to do and said to me, do what you love to do. If you love it, you'll be really good at it.

And the point is that if you love it, you're going to do it a lot. I don't have to force myself to go to work in the morning. I love to go to work in the morning. I can't wait to go to work in the morning because I'm doing what I love to do. Whereas if I was, you know, as I was working in the government originally. I hated working in the government. Nothing ever happened. I was doing what my boss told me we should be doing, not what I thought we should be doing. And it was, I wasn't risking anything. It was just a safe job, which to me was just boring. And so I think that's the difference. My father's philosophy was rigid and for appearances, and Jeffrey's philosophy was personal, do what you love. And he always encouraged me, just try it. Just try it and see how it works. It's not about,

a goal. It's about enjoying the process and about figuring it out along the way. What a relief. You know, it's what I always call it. Jump in the pond, splash around, see what's good. If you don't like it, get out of the pond, but at least you've tried it. And then once you're in the pond, you can go, oh, that's really interesting over there. I think I'm going to try over there. And you move in that direction. And eventually you end up in a stream, which as a friend of mine says, the stream carries you along and you're not knocking against the riverbanks. You're in a stream that's really where you belong. And Jeffrey really sent me in that direction, which I'm enormously grateful to him for. When you try to make sense of your parents, I don't know if you do that, but most of, I guess,

civilization does, do you think he denied himself throughout his life? And that's why he was trying to pass that down. Where do you think that came from? I think it was a very 50s view of the world. I think it was Dr. Spock that you did with the parents. parents told you to do, that they set the rules. And it wasn't about the kids. It was about what you thought was appropriate. And my mother didn't connect. So she only had rigid rules about what she should do as a parent and what I should do as a child. There was no, what would you like to do today? Or what would you like to have for dinner? Or there was none of that. It was she decided what I water school, what I studied, when I studied, everything was very rigid. So I don't know really

if my whole life has been a rejection of that, or I would have done this anyway. I just had a false start with them. I don't think they were bad people. I think they just felt that we should do, as kids, we should do what they wanted us to do. And that's not how I work well. If Jeffrey wants me to do something, he said, whatever you do, don't do that. And he knows, he knows, he knows, go do it immediately. Yeah, it's a secret weapon. It's a secret weapon. Definitely don't make the bavlova for me right now.

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It was for the Office of Management and Budget, which is the group in the White House that writes the budgets of all the agencies. And I was working on nuclear energy budgets. How crazy is that? So, MBD, just a little nuclear energy budget. You know, non-consequential. A starter job. A starter job, really. Yeah.

I was a waiter. Ford and Carter. You know, it's an entry. Get your foot in the door. So you're 30 years old. You are. I was 25, yeah. You're 25.

When I was 30. When I was 30, I said, yeah. So when you're 30, you and Jeffrey, great D.C. jobs. You have never been to cooking school. You have never been to the Hamptons. You don't have experience in retail. And you look on the back. of the New York Times, and there's a tiny little ad.

Tiny, tiny little ad. Tiny little baby ad. No reasonable person would answer. And it is advertising a 400 square foot specialty food store in West Hampton, New York, which is very far away from D.C. Tell us what happens. Well, I saw this ad for a business for sale, and I thought, God, that sounds like fun. You know, they used to have businesses for sale in the New York Times,

where they would advertise like dry cleaners in the Bronx. And there was an ad for a frozen yogurt shop. Like nobody had ever heard of frozen yogurt. That probably had no future at all. So I saw this ad for a specialty food store. And I thought, well, that sounds like fun. And so I went home and I said to Jeffrey, I really need a new life. This government stuff is you.

It's not me. And he said, just pick something you love to do. Just pick something and don't worry about whether you make money. Just choose something. And I said, well, I saw this ad for a business for sale. And I just think it would be really fun to work in a specialty food store. And he said, let's go look at it. I don't know if he thought he was humoring me or if he just thought that's what I should be doing.

So we drove up the next weekend. We looked at the store. It was tiny. There was nobody in it. It was a town that was basically closed for the winter. It was the beginning of April. There was nobody around. And I walked in that store and they were baking chocolate chip costs.

cookies. And I thought, okay, this is where I need to be. I have no idea why. And we made a very low offer thinking, you know, she'll come back, we'll negotiate. We drove back to Washington. I thought, we'll think about this. And then, as you know, on Monday morning, she called me in my office and said, thank you very much. I accept your offer. And I just remember thinking, oh, shit. I think I just bought a specialty food store. I mean, it just happened like that. It was just crazy. And two months later, I found myself behind the counter of a store that I owned that I didn't

know anything about. And I mean, I did it in a rational and slightly rational way. I made a deal with her that she would stay with me for a month to teach me how to run the store, which I thought would at least give me some grounding. That's smart. Very smart. I mean, part of me thought, how can I possibly leave this great job in Washington, all my friends, my husband, and just pick myself up and move to this place I've never been before

to do a business I've never been in before. And part of me just went, I have a low threshold of boredom. And I was done with my job. And I thought, okay, I just have to jump off a cliff. And I'll figure it out. And little did I know that it would be like the beginning of a path to to where I am today talking to you. I'm sitting here thinking, wow, your courage and willingness to trust your impulses and your desires is so huge to your entire trajectory and also the ability to live in a space where it's like, don't worry if you make money. Do you have any advice for people who are like, God, I'm craving to go after what I want, but I'm not in the position to be able to be like not having to worry about making money?

or is there any room for like building some of that want into our daily lives if we're not able to choose something dramatic? I think everybody can have, everybody has an idea about something that would be great to do. But we stand on the side of the pond going, oh, it's too cold. There could be things in there. I don't know. There are all these unknowns. And we talk ourselves out of it. And it could be as simple as a hobby.

We just go, well, you know, I remember Jeffrey saying, you know, I'm 20 years old, I'm never going to learn how to, it's too late to learn how to play the piano, which seemed too scary to him. And yet, you're not. I mean, I think when your kid, you do stuff that you think that you can fail at and learn. It'll take time to learn. But as an adult, you don't do that anymore. You don't take chances because the failure is too scary. I think I was just incredibly bored, and I'm amazed at looking back now at the courage I had to do what I had to do.

because what was in my head was what my mother always told me, you think it's a good idea, but it'll turn out badly. And I had to overcome that message that I got over and over and over again to do something that was out of the norm. And yet I was able to do it. I just was incredibly compelled to find something I love doing. And this is what Cecily helped you identify, right? Yes, exactly. that that voice in my head was my mother's, not mine. And she taught me to replace it with my, but that was many years later.

Right. That was 10 years later. I realized that I had to replace that voice. And that voice is never going to go away. That voice is always with me. But I always have to remind myself, no, that's not your voice. Everything you've done, I tell myself, has turned out better than I could have imagined. And my mother's voice says it's going to turn out badly.

It doesn't. I just have to reiterate that over and over and over. over again because we're stuck with what was put in there when we were really small. You still hear that voice in your head? And then what do you do? Do you just say like, hi, mom? No, I say something else beside my mom. You know what I do? It's funny because I have this little, I think when I was about 13 or 14, my father said, nobody will ever love you. And I walk up Madison Avenue and somebody just leans in and says, I love you. And it happens all the time, which is so lovely. And I always say to myself, he was wrong. So I just have this kind of like,

oh, wrong again. They were wrong. I just have this little cosmic joke with myself that they had a view of who I was that was just completely wrong. And I've replaced it with who I am. And, you know, when something good happens, I always go, wrong. That's so sweet because it's not like based in bitterness, like your response to this, doesn't have any kind of bitterness. coated into it because I can find myself being in a family where I felt like I had to prove my worth and to try to win love, I can sometimes find myself getting into the bitterness track. So it's so beautiful to just notice when they were wrong rather than associating it with any like kind of, I'm doing this in spite of you, bitterness kind of thing. It's really beautiful.

It's freedom. Thank you. I mean, I can go on a rant about my mother. Sure. Who can? Can we all? You're so unique in that. Jeffrey always says if he wants to think about something while we're having a conversation, he would always say, so what would your mother think about that? And he knows I'm off to the races. He's buying himself some time. Exactly.

You're right, it's not bitter. It's almost ironic. You know, there's this wonderful quote that I talk about in the book that is attributed to George Lucas. We're all living in cages with a door wide open. And I think it's so beautiful because we have the ability to get out of that cage, but a lot of us are afraid to because it's what we know. And I think my parents lived in cages. And I just feel really good that I got out of that cage.

I just want to flag as an excellent psychological activity, Jeffrey's question. If you're trying to make a big decision, it's probably a good idea to ask yourself, okay, what would my mother or my father, whoever voices you're trying to escape, think of this? Then you can get that out. Then you can ask yourself, what do I think of this? That's really good. Because sometimes the voice feels like what you think. That's right.

But if you can get it out as this is what she would say, then you can be free to then bring yourself. Right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's cool. Very cool. So your dad thinks you're never going to be loved. And here you are 60 years later.

Still with Jeffrey, 60 years. Yeah. This is a love story for the age. ages. The internet loves you. You are like, hashtag, what are they, hashtag couple goals? Yes. Is this what, this is everywhere? And I have loved y'all for a long time. And after reading your book, I love you even more because you were so brave to talk about your separation. And your separation gave me, it made it so deep and real. And, you know, and, It made me respect you so much because during a time when I don't think women were doing that a lot.

And even now, like, you took time away because you needed proof that things would be different. You needed something to hold on to. What was it? And how did you know? What did you need? Well, I think I went from my parents' house to Jeffrey's house at a time when women were wives. We had roles. Men had roles.

Women had roles. And we were expected to follow them. And of course, Jeffrey, being of the time, expected that too. And I just always fought against that kind of cage. You know, it's funny, it was scary at the time when I said I just needed time on my own. But when I look back now, I think it's even scarier because when I think about what I could have missed, if that hadn't turned out well, it's frightening to me. But he was so kind.

And he said, if you feel like you need to be on your own, you need to be on your own. And he even supported that. which made me think, am I crazy? But we figured it out. We figured it out. We came back together. Changed both of us. And I think the rest of our life would have been very different if I hadn't done it. And I think we're both happier. Isn't it true, though, that you could have missed the other way, too? Like, if you hadn't been brave enough to challenge it, you might not have the relationship with Jeffrey that you have now. No, I wouldn't. You wouldn't. And I was changed by it, and he was changed by it. So I would not have had the relationship.

You know, it's like a little piece of sand and an oyster. If something's bothering and you don't fix it, it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And it just damages the relationship. It comes out in different ways. And I think we were very honest with each other. And we figured it out, which is wonderful. What do you feel like you figured out? I figured out who we were.

I mean, Jeffrey said to me that he was in the State Department. He worked for the Secretary of State doing policy work and writing issue papers. he felt that because he was the husband, that he didn't have the freedom to travel as much as he wanted to with the State Department. And he figured out that, and I said to him, no, you need to do what you want to do. And just because we're husband and wife doesn't mean you can't do whatever you want to do. We'll figure it out.

And, I mean, there were years when he lived in Tokyo and we figured it out. We went back and forth between Tokyo and East Hampton, as unlikely as that sounds, but we figured it out. He just has this view of the world that each of us has to decide what we want to do and we have to figure out how to do both of them. It's not like we do what you want to do or what we do what I want to do. We have to do both things and we'll just work out the details. And I think we got out of traditional roles that we were supposed to play. And it's really satisfying. Satisfying. This is something we've talked about.

another thing your dad used to say is you'll never be satisfied. And I wrote to you about this because that's the last thing my ex-husband said when he walked out the door was you'll never be satisfied. I mean, if you look at someone who gives up a really, really good DC job to buy a little shop a lot of states away or who risks a really good marriage to take a separation, one of you is that someone who will never be satisfied. What do you make of that casting women as unsatisfiable? I think what my father was talking about and maybe your ex-husband is we didn't want what they wanted us to have. It wasn't that I wasn't satisfied with things. I wasn't satisfied with what they wanted. That's right.

I'm always satisfied with doing what I want to do. And I think that may have changed now. I don't know. I don't know about other people's relationships, but I think that's what they were talking about. Does that sound right to you, Amanda? It does. It's, you won't settle for what I'm offering is what you will ever be satisfied. Yeah, exactly.

How about we have bigger ideas than you do? Hey. That's so true. And we want to use our creativity and our ambition and our drive to do what we want to do, not what a guy wants us to do or anybody. It doesn't matter who it is. We want to do what we want to do. And we've created the structure so that we can do that.

And that's what's satisfying is to challenge ourselves. Yeah. It almost makes you understand a little bit. I feel like we were all raised. We were all little girls who maybe our parents sensed in us a biggerness than what they thought was available to us in the world. If you're raising a little INA and you are a rigid person who's looking at the world and thinks there's only a handful of things.

things available to your daughter. And you sense in her a bigness and a desire and a big life force, you might spend all of your time telling her, you will never be loved if you stay like this. You will never be satisfied if you stay like this. You can't do what you want. You have to do what. Like, it's almost like understandable when you're sensing a big spirit inside a structure that is very limited for her. It's really helpful. That's really smooth. That's really smooth. Because I never, I never saw it that way, but I think you're absolutely right. Me too. Because I always thought I tamped it down.

But you're right. You'll never be loved if you continue to try and do too much. Yeah, that's really smart. I know. That was kind of healing for me also. Like, yeah, that's right. It's fear. It's scared.

Like parents with a big energy girl would be like, oh, shit. And also remember, I mean, in all fairness, we were really, I certainly was a transitional generation. I was in the beginning of, I mean, Gloria Steinem was writing when, you know, Ms. Magazine came out when I was that age. And there were movies then like Jill Clayberg. It's an unmarried woman. Is that what the name of the movie was? So women were really trying to break out of the mold at the time. But, you know, most people still lived in the 50s.

And that was their world. And they thought if my brother was brought up to be a doctor and I was brought up to be a wife. even though I had to have a great education, I had to do all the same things. But at the end of the day, their goal was that I'd be a wife. And that's not a goal. That's not, that's not. I mean, it's nice to be married to somebody you love, but it's not a goal. Lately, we've been doing a lot of simple summer meals.

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if you don't taste grilled corn at some point. Instacart brings convenience, quality, and ease right to your door so you can focus on what matters most. Download the Instacart app now and get groceries just how you like. Today's episode is brought to you by Alma. When it comes to therapy, the changes can be so gradual you don't even notice them at first. And then one day you realize you're reacting differently. You're calmer in situations that used to overwhelm you. You're not spiraling as quickly, but finding the right therapist can feel intimidating. There's so much searching, trying to figure out insurance, wondering if you'll actually click with someone, it can become this whole stressful process that delays people from getting support in the first

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the weather's nice, and wind down at the end of the day. I feel like we built an extension of the house without actually having to do any construction. And it's been even more of an asset when we host. My favorite find was the two-piece modern industrial Acacia Wood Outdoor Conversation Set. It has that clean modern look, but it's also incredibly comfortable, which is important because you actually want to spend time out there. Ready to upgrade your home for way less. Head to wayfair.com right now to shop all things home and get your space ready for less. That's w-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. Have you always known what you want? It seems like all of this beautiful thing that you're able to build is based on this very

underrated skill of clarity of knowing what you want. Because you're like, I want to go for what I want. But what do you think it takes to know what you want? Because I think if you ask a lot of women, what do you want, that would be a baffling question. I think that's a really important question. And the answer varies. I mean, I remember somebody, a therapist saying to me, what do you think would be fun? Because I didn't have any, I wasn't having any of fun. And I remember saying to very clearly, a convertible. And I mean, here I am, I think 40 years later, I still have a convertible. So I could identify those things very clearly. But other things, when I sold Bear for Contessa and set up an office for myself having no idea what I was going to do next, and actually thinking it might be that my best

career was behind me. I thought maybe I would never figure out what to do next. You're 51 at this time. I was 50, 55. Yeah, 50, 51. Okay. And then I didn't know what to do. Jeffrey said to me, you love the food business. Just do it a different way. And I thought, well, people had asked me to do a cookbook. I didn't think it would be interesting.

But I thought, well, at least it would be something to do. And I'll do that while I figure out what to do next. But one of the things that I do was I'm doing something. I tend to swing for the fences. So I got a proposal accepted. I thought, well, let me just see if I can do this as well as I can do it. I hired my own publicist. I hired my own photographer.

I just hired people myself so that I could make the decisions. I didn't have a publishing company telling me how to write a book or telling me how to photograph it. I just wanted to do it my way. And it was a very expensive decision, but Jeffrey was totally behind it. And it worked out really well. So I didn't think I knew what I wanted to do next. I just started doing something and tried to figure out how I could make it enjoyable and fun. So that's more of a process.

And it's everything in between. You don't always know exactly what it is, but just start. Just start doing something that would be interesting. And that will lead to something else that's interesting. And that leads to something else. But when I look back, as I said, I'm amazed how brave I was about doing something that I had no idea whether I could do it or whether it would be interesting, but it just kind of tweaked my interest.

And I like solving problems. So having something very difficult, as you all know, we can do hard things. And those are the things that are really satisfying that make your life. It's not the easy things. And one of the hard things you had to do throughout this and that you had such clarity with with all of your projects. Like you were heading into unknown territory. You'd never done a cookbook at 50.

You had not made a TV show. And you're going into these new industries. And the people are telling you, we're the experts. This is what we do for a living. You do it this way. Over and over, they're telling you the book, they design the, the book for you. They said, no, this is the way to do it. And it didn't feel right. The same way they wanted to do the TV show, it didn't feel right. And you kept pushing against it. And they said it's

going to be a disaster. Not so much. Turned out to be pretty good. It turned out okay. Tell us about that because that is scary. When you don't know anything about an industry other than knowing yourself, how do you navigate that? I have to tell you, I don't know where it comes from. When I started writing a cookbook, having never written one, and I always think, if I had gone to the bookstore and seen how many cookbooks there are, I would have thought you're out of your mind. But I just wanted to write the cookbook that I wanted to write. Maybe it's from my childhood. Maybe I was always this way, you know, nature versus nurture. Who knows? I just hate somebody telling me what to do. I absolutely hate it. And so when I started the process, I thought, I'm going to write a cookbook, but I'm going to write the cookbook I want to write. And I don't want any telling me how to do it. And so I did it on my own terms. And when somebody tried to tell me something, it's not that I would say, no, I'm not doing it. I would, like my editor, wanted the design to look like a certain thing. And I said, look, it's not about whether you win or I win. Let's find a design where we're both happy. And he just refused to let go control of it.

So I found somebody who said to him, just get out of her way, let her do it. My second editor, after I worked with her for a year, I said to her, I wasn't so difficult to work with, was I? Because I'm sure my first editor thought it was just impossible. And she said, you were absolutely great. And the one thing I needed to know is when your obsessions kick in, just get out of the way. And I love that about her. So, I mean, she got it. She got that I needed to make my own decisions.

You're talking about negotiating with your editor. But if there's a way for you to get what you want and me to get what I want, you are a ridiculous businesswoman. I mean, this is something that, like, everyone loves you as a human as a voice, as a cook. I'm obsessed with you as a businesswoman. And I feel like part of your clarity of knowing what you want hones your ability to know what other people want, which makes you negotiating magic. Like, you were able to figure out things and settle lawsuits and cases that like entire law firms of people couldn't see their way through because you're able to see a way through. Can you please, for the love of God, teach us your magic of how do

you, because this is a revolutionary kind of, I would venture to say, a woman-centered way of like, I can figure out how to win without you losing. I have to give my father a lot of credit in this. When I was a kid, the only thing that we would talk about is he liked to do real estate deals and my mother hated it. So he would call me into his study and say, talk this deal through with me. And I think it came from him. I don't think I made this up, but I really believe it, is when you're negotiating with somebody, figure out first what they want and figure out how to get what you want and what they want at the same time. So everybody walks away feeling like they won. And it's so often not about money. It's about something else entirely. But in business,

deals, it's very successful. How do you practically do that? Because you've gotten people to sell you things that were absolutely 100% not for sale. Like, exactly. How do you actually, do you say to the person, what do you need, what do you want? Or do you just put yourself in their shoes and imagine it? Or do you develop a relationship and find out that way? Like, how do you know what they want and need? And tell us a story about that. I'm thinking about two different deals that I did. One, where the seller told me what he wanted. He wanted to sell the property in five years. And I needed to buy it today because I needed to build a barn there where I could work. So I knew what he needed and I knew what I needed. And I figured out three options for him so he could choose whichever worked best for him. And that worked.

And I just was kind of hunting around for what would while we were talking. I was hunting around for what would appeal to him. And it turned out that he said one of my options was I buy it from you today for 10% more than the value of the property. And he said, actually, that works for me. And so we did that. And so I got him what he needed. He got me what I needed. And everybody walked away feeling like they'd won, which is the way I want negotiations to be. I don't want people feeling like they got used or they got a raw deal or they got manipulated into something. I want people to feel good about it. There was another where I was buying a building. and the man was asking for a lot of money.

He was a real estate investor. So my idea is that he wanted to feel like he made a good investment when he bought it three years before, and then he made a lot of money on it. I didn't have any money at all, so I didn't know how it was going to buy this building. So I made him a deal where I said yes to his price, but I would pay him in five years,

and that he would give me a mortgage for the five years until I could go to the bank and borrow the money. and pay him off. So he got what he wanted, which is that he could tell his friends, I sold this building for so much money. And I got what I wanted, which is I could buy a building with no money. It worked out great. So, I mean, you have to be creative about how you talk to somebody, find out what they're interested in, what's important to them, and then figure out what you want. And there's very often a solution. I mean, a realtor once said to me, make an offer, make a low offer. It doesn't matter. If you don't have the money to buy something, make a low offer. What are they going to do? Call the police.

And it was such a great thing to remember. And every once in a while, I make a low offer on something that I either don't think is worth what they're asking or I don't have the money for it. And every once in a while it works. And they say yes, because they just want to sell the property. Cool. And I think like long term, too, I firmly believe in that kind of way of negotiating where if everybody feels like they're walking away, a little bit of winner, that is universally, like, you're sending out into the universe that kind of energy. And so that's the energy that's going to keep coming back to you. It's like this carmic force. And I believe this is partly why more women need to be in leadership positions. Because the more we have women having this kind of mentality,

the more peace we will bring, the more unity we can bring to a very divided situation we might find ourselves in. So I just love it. And I'm going to start doing this. we're going to start doing this. It's the opposite of how I do things. I know. Hey! I love you. How does it change how you do things?

What was a negotiation that didn't work out that you think might have been different? Oh, shoot. I don't know, but I don't know about an example right now, but I think I tend to go into any, like, negotiation or argument with a very defensive, fearful. Oh, that's very interesting. Like, protective. This is, it feels like a zero-sum game. And this is changing. I'm going to get screwed.

Yeah. This is changing for me now. I can feel myself going into that energy more, but I think it's about the voices in my head, too, that are not mine. Yeah. But I'm just starting to figure that out. If we go into a negotiation and we're a little insecure, we feel that we're going to end up being one down from the person we're negotiating with.

Yep. And very often you don't want to be. And I think the best deals that I've made are the ones where I don't really care if it comes out fine. if it doesn't come out, it's fine too. That's your energy right now. That is a key. It's not feeling like it's life or death or that your identity or your whatever is tied up into it. The best situations I've been in recently are ones where I'm like, this would be great if it works.

And if it doesn't work, there's great stuff about that too. And that's sort of a very powerful position, I think. How many times have you negotiated to buy an apartment or a house or something like that and you didn't get it? And then when you did get something, you thought, oh, thank God. God, that deal can happen. So I always feel if a deal falls through, I always think, okay, I'm going to find out what's next and it's going to be better. And I'm going to be really grateful that it fell through. I come from evangelical Christianity.

And our dogma is basically, if it rhymes, it's true. And so we always said, rejection is God's protection. Oh, gosh. And like that one might be true. I think is often true. Yeah. I heard a rock star say it recently as no just means new opportunity. which doesn't rhyme, so that's probably not true.

And Jesus would not approve. But that has played out as very true in my life. I've spent so much time thinking about your book. You go from this rigidity where your mom thought that, like, food was strictly for sustenance. It's kind of like your dads. You can't enjoy things that are achievements. And if there was any kind of joy associated with food, it almost like negated the nutrition. It cannot be both.

It's just that one thing. And then you came to food with this idea of like, you're expressing love through it. But also what I think is so freaking cool. And I've been thinking about this from my life perspective is that like your recipes are not about, they're about the food, but they're really about the party. They're like, yes. Because if you, you can make something impressive, you can spend all your energy. and be totally stressed out and have something impressive. But then when you present the thing that's impressive,

you have nothing left of you to give, which I feel like is the way I've lived my life. I'm trying so hard to be impressive and present a dish that's beautiful that I have missed out on the opportunity to connect with my company and to actually be at the party. Like, tell us. Tell us about, I feel like your whole life and all of your food is that. Just how do we be at the party better?

What I did when I wrote Behr for Contessa Parties was talk about what works and what doesn't work. And I mean, I just love to do dinner parties. I love to invite people over. I love that connection. And I love to cook for people. I love to cook for people I love, I should say. I started to look at what I do and why I do it. And I realized that you can make a perfectly delicious meal that everybody will appreciate and feel taken care of and nourished and connected with.

and the more low key the meal is and the less exhausted you are, the better the party is. Because people just subliminally feel uncomfortable if they feel like you've worked yourself to the bone. And as Nora Ephron once wrote, I'm just paraphrasing, if you answer you the door and you're like exhausted and your hair's on fire, people feel terrible. They don't want to feel like you've like given everything to make dinner for them. They want to feel like it's a good restaurant. They greet it at the door. you're happy to see them. Have a drink. Let's sit down. Let's talk. Not like, I can't talk to you now because I have something in the oven. I realize the parties that were the best where everything's made in advance or served at room temperature. It's simple. It's delicious. And you're happy to be with the people that you love. And that's really it. The master of this was a cookbook writer, Lee Bailey, who lived in Bridge Hampton and had a wonderful store called Bailey Hübner at the old Henri Bendel. And he would sit with his guest. in the living room, having a lovely time, having a drink, having little tomatoes if they were in season,

very simple hors d'oeuvres. And then everybody would move to the kitchen, and he would make dinner while they were in the kitchen, the finishing touches. And it was southern, it was simple, it was fun, and everybody just loved being there. So I realized the Julia Childs make something that takes four days for dinner is really actually counterproductive. So why do it anymore? Let's do something simple. Make a roast chicken. People are just delighted to have something delicious and to sit around, you know, small round, I like small parties, small round table with six people and just have a wonderful time.

It's so true, even in our house, even when I'm cooking dinner and sometimes when I'm like trying to time it correctly. And it's hard. Yeah. And I can be very particular with time. And then I can get a little bit triggered and a little bit short. And so this one, Chippy. We call it chippy, I know. It's getting chippy in there. And so Glennon will start to just make herself busy so she doesn't feel bad.

So she starts to unload the dishwasher or fill the dishwasher, set the table. Or just walk around looking annoyed. I found that that was. Just picking up things and putting them down. Yeah. If I just look upset, that's helpful, I think. I mean, I do this professionally. And Jeffrey knows if he starts talking to me 15 minutes before people get there, I'm like, don't talk to me. That's comforting. So he knows to get out of the way. Yeah. Yeah, it's because, you know what?

Cooking's stressful. I've been doing it my whole life. I've been in the food business. I've written cookbooks. It's still stressful because you order a chicken that's, you know, you want a four-pound chicken. And what you get is a two-and-a-half-pound chicken. And all of a sudden, the whole thing is the timing is off, the quantities are off, everything. Or the carrots taste different in August than they do in January.

And you have to make a job. I'm the way. So it's hard. I really appreciate how hard it is. I just feel like it's such a beautiful way because when you're talking about the dinner party, I'm thinking about my parenting and my relationships because it's like the proof of love is not in evidencing your self-sacrifice. That's interesting. It's in the shared experience. That's good. When you front and center your sacrifice trying to show that that's your love, it just makes people feel bad. But when you sit down calmly with them, they just love you. They just love you.

That's it. Yeah. We've all had bad dinner parties and we've all learned from them. And you know what? It's not the end of the world. You just kind of get up, you brush yourself off and you do it again. And you learn from it. But it's kind of the end of the world if you run your entire life like a bad dinner party.

It is the end of the world. if you martyr yourself and in an attempt to impress, you lose yourself and you present to the world nothing but a harried martyr thinking that that is going to earn new love and it never does. That is kind of the end of the world. Right? Just to bring it down. It's a joyful conversation. Well, it's the end of the world.

If you realize it, it will be the end of that way of the world. Yes. You begin again. And you begin again, like Ina just said. You just dust yourself off and you can start anew. And I know we have to end. I just, I can't stop thinking about something that Ina said in the very beginning of this, that this whole life, this whole beautiful, gorgeous life that Ina is living and teaching us all and inviting us all into started when she saw this teeny little teeny advertisement in a newspaper. And she thought this thought.

God, that looks like fun. Pod Squad, what is the thing? That you just go, God, that looks like fun. I know the world tells you that's not the thing you're supposed to follow. But is that our voice? Or somebody else is. If we didn't, if Aina had done the self-sacrificing thing that her dad told her was associated with accomplishments, we would have no Aina. And she would never have learned how to play beer pong.

That's for sure. Not a one. I never would have been there. And that's the real tragedy. So all's well that ends well. That's right. Be ready when the luck happens. It's a damn delight.

It will make you think that the silly little thing that your heart desires might turn into an empire of joy, you want to read it. It made me so happy. And it made me have a little bit more of a crush on you and a crush on me. actually, which I think is the best thing that's the best thing ever. Thank you. It's so happy to see all of you. Thank you so much.

It was just, what a great time. Thank you so much for being here. And I hope I see you all soon. Yes. Me too. And also thank you, Taylor. Thank you, Taylor. Thank you for you for introducing us.

Our two stories, us two telling this one story will never end. Oh, I know. Trust me. I know that'll never end. Okay. And I love that we both have the same story. Yes.

Usually stories kind of veer off in another direction. We have exactly the same story. I love you. Love all three of you. Thank you, too, Haina. Thank you so much. Bye, Pod Squad. We are proud to say that We Can Do Hard Things is an independent production brought to you by us.

Treat Media. Treat Media makes art for humans who want to stay human. And you can follow us at We Can Do Hard Things on Instagram.